Trials

Amon wasn't very surprised to see her standing there. When their gazes had originally met, he'd immediately sensed her interest.

He shook her hand and smiled.

"Nice to meet you too. I'm Amon, ninth-ranked royal seat holder. It's my pleasure."

His heart shook for a mere second as their skin touched and he felt himself engulfed by a form of aether pressure he'd simply never experienced before.

He felt like a tiny and insignificant ant, plunged into the deepest trenches of the deepest oceans of existence, left alone in a dark expanse, surrounded by countless eyes that drilled into him and stripped him of any privacy.

For that mere second, he felt helpless and weak.

Slowly, without showing anything, he retracted his hand and smiled.

"I suppose you've come here to talk to me, no?" She nodded as if nothing had happened. "Well, let's head in. It'll be better if we talk inside."

"Follow me."

***

Within a grand, spacious, and luxurious room, the two sat cross-legged facing one another around a marble table.

Upon it, two cups and a jar of tea could be seen as a butler appeared and served them both.

Amon took a sip and let them brew in the silence of the moment, aware Delilah was getting more and more uncomfortable, but he didn't care.

Their first interaction told him all he needed to know about her.

After a while, he put his cup down and met her gaze.

"So, what can I do for you?"

Hearing the cold edge laced within his words, she imperceptibly shook her head and sighed before she eventually answered.

"Do you know what the Undead Ascension Ceremony is?"

Amon shook his head.

"It's a rare event that only happens once every generation and is exclusive to the two supreme species of our sector—The Liches and Undead. It is a trial that was made by our planet's first Undead—The Lord of Black."

"He and his wife, The First Lich, decided to create this trial to make sure their legacy would live on forever. This trial essentially allows us to sublimate the origin of our lineages and evolve them, and if you're lucky, it even allows you to evolve your racial tier or entirely change races—while staying an Undead or Lich variant, of course."

Amon's interest perked up hearing this, something that was caught on by Delilah.

"It's an event that happens in a special realm where only the royal seat holders and noble spawns can attend, and they must all, of course, be part of the younger generation, so in other words, younger than ten thousand years."

"That's… interesting. I suppose I must thank you for the information." He took a sip. "But I don't suppose an esteemed Elder such as yourself waited for me at my gate just to tell me something that I'd eventually come to know about."

She chuckled.

"And what if I did? Can't an elder look out for a bullied youth?"

Amon frowned.

"Bullied?"

"Haha!" Her chuckle turned into a laugh. "Oh boy, do you think you were given this mansion randomly? Can you not sense how chaotic and volatile the aether within the air is?"

"It's practically impossible to cultivate here, and even if you managed to do so, you'd be putting yourself in great danger."

It was Amon's turn to chuckle as he heard her explanation. With his control and affinity to aether, it truly didn't matter how stable the aether was. If he wanted to cultivate, he could.

Even if they had put him in an environment void of any aether, he'd still be able to cultivate. He could simply decay the ground and use his growth gift to turn it into aether.

"I see." He stood up and bowed. "Then I must thank this elder for being so kind."

With his fists cupped and his posture a reflection of humbleness, Delilah couldn't help but sigh once more.

'This boy...'

Not once had he looked at her body. She shook her head and stood up.

"Alright then, follow me."

"Where-"

"Where else? We're going to awaken your affinities. You can't keep fighting using your fists like an idiot."

***

Amon and Delilah walked through the streets of their sector, going unnoticed by all under the guise of a spell the latter had cast.

After a few minutes of walking, they arrived in front of a grand floating orb of black, covered in green runes, as large as a moon, connected to the ground via a set of stairs, entirely made out of aether.

This monument stood in a corner of the sector, sticking out like a sore thumb, and yet, no one seemed to care for it.

"Can they not see it?" he asked in shock.

The aether pressure this orb gave off was no joke. In fact, it was enough to instantly kill any regular human.

"They can, but their mind filters it out. After a certain level of density is reached, aether begins to interact differently with space and light. It physically stands here but is anchored in a plane of aether they are not worthy of sensing. In fact, if you weren't with me, you wouldn't have sensed it either."

Amon couldn't help but nod in amazement.

"This is called a sphere of awakening, and usually, before cultivating, you come here to unveil your affinities and your gifts in one go."

She signaled for Amon to go toward the stairs.

"Climb the stairs and enter the sphere. The rest will be handled by a virtual aether assistant."

He nodded and, without further discussion, began to speed up the stairs.

[She's a weird woman, isn't she?]

'Yeah, weird for sure.' He chuckled. 'But dangerous as well. Very dangerous.'

'She tried probing me earlier with her aether pressure to see how resilient my mental state is, and the entire time we were talking, she kept using her spirit sense to try and scan me, unaware I too awakened mine.'

[Huh? How did she not know?]

'Don't forget. People don't expect me to be walking five supreme paths; they just think I'm a talented limit breaker. If my thoughts are correct, only mage path practitioners awaken their spirit sense so early, and with the battle style I displayed earlier, she probably thinks I walk the regular golden path.'

'Or a variant path that empowers my body.'

'Either way, the point is she was testing and probing me for something, which is a bad sign.'